Many vehicles come equipped with push-to-start buttons, which allow vehicle ignition upon a press. These vehicles also often come with customizable key fobs, so that the combination of a fob and an ignition will cause the vehicle to revert to particular settings for the user associated with a given fob. Of course, fobs can easily be mixed up in a household, and the number of customizable fobs is limited by the physical number of fobs, requiring additional user expense if more than the initial number of fobs is desired, for an increased number of drivers, for example.
U.S. 2013/0096733 generally relates to an electronic ignition control system that includes a keyfob having a biometric sensor that senses an identifying biological characteristic of the user. The keyfob also has a transmitter that transmits an air-borne signal dependent upon the identifying biological characteristic. A vehicle includes a motor and an ignition that starts the motor. The ignition has an unlocked state in which the user can cause the ignition to start the motor by actuating a start mechanism. The ignition also has a locked state in which actuation of the start mechanism by the user does not cause the ignition to start the motor. The vehicle also has a receiver that receives the air-borne signal from the transmitter. The vehicle further has a controller in communication with each of the ignition and the receiver. The controller switches the ignition from the locked state to the unlocked state dependent upon the air-borne signal received by the receiver.
U.S. 2010/0235026 generally relates to a travel mode setting device for a hybrid car capable of ensuring the security against car theft and convenience when the car is lent to the third party. The hybrid car has travel drive sources and selectively uses one of them and can travel in one of travel modes. Authenticating means separately authenticate the car user and creates authentication results. Limiting means limits the travel modes to the usable travel modes according to the results of the authentication by the authenticating means.